Election officials in the western state of Gujarat held on to electronic voting machines, or EVMs, on their way to polling stations in the city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

More than 800 million voters. Over 930,000 polling booths. And the battle to lead the world’s largest democracy.

Friday marked the month-long culmination of India’s federal polls, and The Wall Street Journal reporters across the country live-blogged news, analysis and commentary as results trickled in through the day.

Narendra Modi, the man who spearheaded the Hindu nationalist-Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign, is widely-expected to form India’s next government, while the ruling-Congress party, analysts say, is poised to its biggest-ever election defeat.

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There are three important numbers to watch as polling numbers flood India’s TV networks: 272, 230 and 180.

272 –The Simple Majority: The first number is a no-brainer: If any party wins the “magic figure” of 272 seats in Parliament–the minimum required to have a simple majority in the 543-member lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha — it means that party will hold power for up to five years.

230 – The Hiccup: If the winning political party gets roughly 230 or fewer seats, there could be some hiccups in forming a new government. The party will need to align with two or more regional groups to reach the 272-seat majority mark.

180 — The Complex Coalitions: Less than 180 or so seats complicate things considerably. With so few seats, it means a more complex—and less stable—coalition would need to be cobbled together to achieve a ruling majority.

It also raises the prospect of regional parties trying to cobble together an alternative “third front” government. It’s rare, but this has happened before: In 1989 and again in 1996, governments were formed this way, but each time lasted only about two years before falling apart.

The number of seats that the BJP’s Mr. Modi and the party’s allies win today will determine which way India’s benchmark 30-share S&P BSE Sensex is headed in the coming weeks. The Sensex has already hit lifetime highs in recent weeks, on expectations that the NDA will be able to get a majority in Parliament, and India will get a stable government. The Sensex has jumped 21% since Mr. Modi’s prime ministerial candidature was announced last fall.

India’s stock exchanges and market regulator say they are prepared for any sharp volatility on the exchanges as election results are announced.

“We are conducting a daily stress test and we are more than satisfied that our risk-management systems,” work, said U.K Sinha, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

In the past two elections the stock market had wild swings after surprise election results that triggered circuit-breakers. In 2009, trading was halted after the benchmark Sensex rose 1,950 points, the most allowed that time in a single session. Sensex closed that day with a gain of 17%, or around 2111 points, a record in point terms. In 2004, the stock market suffered its worst one-day plunge in four years after the Congress party tried to form the government with the support from leftist parties.

Hanif Lakdawala, a doctor from Gujarat’s Gandhinagar and a Muslim, said he voted for the upstart Aam Aadmi Party candidate because he is not sure the BJP will be fair to his community and the Congress party candidate there had criminal charges against him.

Voting for the BJP candidate in his constituency, Lal Krishna Advani, was not an option said Mr. Lakdawala.

“I cannot take out the images of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 out of my head,” he said. “My daughter was just five and she still remembers the videos of the demolition she watched on television.”

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Mr. Lakdawala said Mr. Modi should discourage communal hatred and focus on his development agenda if he becomes the prime minister. Still some Muslims and other minorities are worried about the future.

“Muslims are scared because of their past experience,” he said. “The Hindu-Muslim divide still exists here.”

India’s automobile makers say they need the new government in New Delhi to save them from the ongoing slump in demand by jump-starting growth through building infrastructure as well as lowering taxes and restrictions on doing business.

Tamil Nadu has a complicated six-way contest between regional All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and national parties Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, as well as the Communists and the Aam Aadmi Party.

AIADMK, the regional party which is ruling the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu is expected to win between 22 and 28 of the 39 parliamentary seats in the state, according to a CBN-IBN estimate before official tally.

The party currently has nine lawmakers in the lower house of parliament. A big win would be an endorsement of the current governance in the state. AIADMK chief and state chief minister Jayaram Jayalalithaa is expected to be one of the key leaders who could shape the next government.

Early Friday morning, the streets of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat were still quiet. Most shops were shut and only a few of cars were on the roads. That could all change quickly. If election results come as expected there could soon be people in the street celebrating.

Early exit polls suggest that the Bharatiya Janata Party- led coalition is set to win a majority in Parliament. That will make Gujarat’s four-time chief minister Narendra Modi the prime minister of India.

The new government needs to focus on jump-starting economic growth in India, but amending foreign investment rules for retail giants like Wal-Mart shouldn’t be high up on the list of priorities, said Adi Godrej, the billionaire chairman of the Godrej Group.

“I think that’s one policy they should forget for a while. Even if they open it up, foreign investors won’t come because of the uncertainties,” he said. “Look what happened after the governments changed in Rajasthan and Delhi.”

Both were among the 12 states to permit foreign investment in supermarkets and other retail outlets that sell more than one brand but they reversed their decision to allow foreign investment multi-brand retail after the Congress party lost power in local elections.

Ghulam Hussain, 35, runs a meat shop in the Muslim neighborhood of Juhapura. He lost his cousin, 35 then, in the 2002 riots. Still, he voted for the BJP this time.

“There is no development in Muslim areas. I voted for BJP so that there is no repeat of the 2002 riots. Now that he (Narendra Modi) has everything, all the power, he wouldn’t hurt people. Why will anybody hurt people unecessarily if people give you what you want,” said Mr. Hussain.

Ahead of any government counting of votes, early indicators were that the BJP hasn’t had to deal with much anti-incumbency sentiment in the state of Chhattisgarh.

The state has 11 Lok Sabha seats, of which nine are occupied by BJP politicians in the current administration. Last year, the state elected the party to run the provincial government for third time in a row. Even opinion polls predict BJP to win 10 seats from the state.

Political pundits will be interested to see how Ajit Jogi of the Congress does. He was chief minister when the state was was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000. Another interesting candidate is Abhishek Singh of the BJP. He is the son of chief minister of the state Raman Singh and running for the first time.

In the state of Jharkhand the BJP is expected todo better than last elections. It won eight of the state’s 15 seats in 2009.

One of the big battles in the state will be in Dumka where two chief ministers are pitted against each other. In Hazaribagh, senior BJP leader and former finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, has opted out of the contest and party has fielded his son Jayant Sinha. The younger Mr. Sinha is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and has worked with McKinsey & Co. in the US.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, one of the main planks of the BJP was a demand for a temple to Ram to be built in the northern Indian town of Ayodhya at the site of the Babri Masjid mosque–which was destroyed in 1992 by Hindu nationalists, sparking some India’s worst ever religious riots. Political observers credit the demand for the Ram temple with galvanizing Hindu supporters to bring the BJP to national power in the late 1990s for a single term.

This election, the BJP is hoping to benefit from the popularity of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. Mr. Modi, currently the chief minister of Gujarat, has positioned himself as an able administrator and economic reformer of a rapidly developing state. Political analyst R.R. Jha, professor of political science at Benares Hindu University, said the parliamentary elections “will be the first electoral test” for the BJP. “The results will show whether people have voted for them on the development factor.”

Big hopes are riding on Mr. Modi that he can reinvigorate the economy by speeding up policy reforms and infrastructure development. That can be easier said than done. For instance, there has been a lack of political consensus to push through some reforms–such as the Goods and Services Tax, a proposal to unify several indirect taxes that economists say could boost India’s growth in gross domestic product by as much as 2 percentage points– due to disagreements between the central government and state governments, a problem that can affect policy initiative no matter who is in charge. The government’s weak financial position also squeezes the ability of the next government to spend heavily on building new ports, airports and roads — facilities that economists say are desperately needed to improve business conditions. The government’s fiscal deficit was uncomfortably wide at 4.6% of GDP in the year ended March 31. If spending is increased, it could widen further and put India’s debt rating at risk of a downgrade. The south Asian economy is growing at less than 5% currently, well below its 8%-plus rates some years back.

The new government needs to loosen controls drug prices to boost incentives for the Indian pharmaceutical industry to create new drug treatments, said Satish Reddy, chairman of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., India’s second-largest drug company by sales.

Last year, the Indian government expanded its control on prices to cover around 30% of India’s $13 billion drug industry. Controlling the prices of medicines for the treatment of ailments such as cancer and HIV makes it harder for companies to justify spending money on researching new treatments, said Mr. Reddy.

The government needs to make it easier to do business in India by scrutinizing investment less, creating regulations that allow corporations to receive automatic government approval for most projects, said Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, founder of Biocon Ltd., an Indian biotechnology pharmaceutical firm.

“Regulatory and tax reforms that focus on ease of doing business, reducing both transaction cost and approval timelines, will send positive signals,” she said.

The process of buying land for new factories also needs to be sped up, possibly borrowing from Narendra Modi’s model in Gujarat, Ms. Shaw said

Early election trends show Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is trailing in the race for his parliamentary seat in Amethi – a place that has shown decades of loyalty to members of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty.

The Gandhi family has held the seat since the 1960s, winning most of the elections by sizable margins.

In the current election, Mr. Gandhi is pitted against television-actress-turned-politician Smriti Irani of the BJP and poet Kumar Vishwas of the Aam Aadmi Party.

Supporters of the BJP are already celebrating in front of the party’s headquarters in New Delhi. ‎Congratulatory banners are flying, cheering the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi on his victory and a live band is playing a Hindi song called “Good Days Ahead.” Party supporters have set up a tea stall, selling ‘NaMo’ tea — a phrase adopted in support of Mr. Modi’s father who was a tea-seller.

E-commerce firms are prevented from selling directly to consumers, forcing them to create convoluted business models. That should change under the new government, he said.

The BJP has joined other parties in opposing foreign investment in some retail segments to protect mom-and-pop stores that employ millions. “But e-commerce doesn’t necessarily mean displacement of jobs. E-commerce brings in a different level of productivity and access,” Mr. Natarajan said.

India’s benchmark S&P BSE Sensex opened 4.26% higher Friday on signs that BJP is leading the race to form the next government in India. The index hit a new intra-day high at 24925.12 versus 24,068.94 on May 13

Early trends by the Election Commission are showing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Harsh Vardhan, who was the chief ministerial nominee for the party in Delhi’s December state elections, is leading Delhi’s key constituency of Chandni Chowk by more than 8,000 votes. Trailing behind is the upstart Aam Aadmi Party’s Ashutosh, a TV journalist-turned-politician who goes by only one name. The constituency is crucial for the Congress party where Kapil Sibal, the country’s current law minister, has held the Chandni Chowk seat through the last two federal elections.

“I could see that there is an overwhelming support for BJP all over the city and we have been feeling it all this while,” said Mr. Vardhan on English television news channel NDTV.

The Indian rupee opened sharply up as early vote counting suggested strong gains for the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The rupee was trading at 58.83 to the dollar compared with 59.29 to the dollar at Thursday’s close.

Randeep Singh Surjewala, a spokesman for the Congress says they are still hopeful of doing well. Discounting early trends that show BJP ahead of Congress, he said, “only postal ballot have been counted. By 12-12.30pm we will know what the trend is.” He said the BJP was being arrogant of by celebrating early. “We should wait for the result.”

In Haryana all eyes are on its bustling heart of Gurgaon, a satellite town packed with corporate headquarters and swanky malls, yet bumpy roads and no proper groundwork for public distribution of power or water. What matters is what Gurgaon really represents – with hundreds of thousands of apartments aimed at the dreams of home ownership for India’s middle-class. He who takes charge will have to tackle ballooning infrastructure challenges in one of India’s emerging cities.

West Bengal sends 42 people to Parliament, making it one of India’s most important states in this election. But the BJP holds only one seat in the state.

It will be difficult for presumed frontrunner, Narendra Modi, and his BJP party to achieve gains in a state run by the mercurial but popular Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee.

The TMC wrested control of the state in 2009 from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) after 30 years of communist control. Ms. Banerjee remains a popular figure in West Bengal, and her party controls 19 of the seats in the state. If the BJP can increase its seats here it would be a significant victory for Mr. Modi.

Outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government couldn’t tame inflation, making it one of its main policy failures. The central bank maintained a tight monetary policy, raising interest rates sharply to cool demand. But the government’s loose fiscal stance diluted its efforts. The government spent heavily on subsidies and welfare programs, which put more money in the hands of people–stoking consumer spending and contributing to the stubborn nature of India’s inflation.

Residents in the Muslim-dominated neighborhood of Juhapura in Gujarat are not rooting for anyone in particular to replace Mr. Modi who has been chief minister of this western state since 2001. Mr. Modi is a frontrunner to becoming India’s next prime minister. If the BJP wins, the search will begin to replace Mr. Modi in Gujarat.

“Whoever is the next chief minister, the person should be fair, promote development and communal harmony,” said Mohammad Idris, 62, who sells ladies’ garments.

Economists say Mr. Modi will have to develop infrastructure and address supply bottlenecks in the farm sector: New storage facilities are needed to ensure food grains don’t rot. The farm distribution network must also be improved to prevent wastage. While economists say there aren’t significant political hurdles in carrying out these overhauls, there is a financial obstacle: The government’s limited resources due to slowing tax revenue means it might have to trim subsidies or other spending to find the money for farm investments. And cutting popular subsidies can be politically difficult.

The result of parliamentary elections in India’s eastern state of Bihar will be decisive for Bharatiya Janata Party as it attempts to counter a resurgent Rashtriya Janata Dal led by Lalu Prasad Yadav and push former ally Janata Dal (United) led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to a third spot.

The BJP and the JD (U) severed their alliance last year, after 17 years of working together. The two parties are contesting the election without each other’s support for the first time since 1996.

Madhya Pradesh’s chief minister has more than a few similarities to Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for prime minister.

In fact, before the BJP announced Mr. Modi as its choice in the race to become prime minister, Madhya Pradesh’s three-time chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, was considered a contender for the party’s top job.

Mr. Chauhan touts his efforts to bring development to Madhya Pradesh, which is sometimes referred to a “Bimaru” state—an acronym that lumps together four of India’s poorest states, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Analysts sometimes liken his record to that of Mr. Modi in Gujarat. Importantly, however, in this year of a strong anti-incumbency mood nationwide, the incumbent party in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP, probably hasn’t created enough room for anti-incumbency fever benefiting the rival Congress party.

Come to think of it, Madhya Pradesh is one state that didn’t really need a so-called “Modi Wave”–the idea that the popularity of Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, might help propel local candidates to victories. In fact, the state’s chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan of the BJP, has successfully carved out his own popular track record. The numbers of the most recent assembly elections, in 2013, are telling: More than 30% of the state’s Muslim voters cast their ballot in favor of Mr. Chauhan, despite the skepticism that many Muslim voters in India have toward the Hindu-nationalist party.

Indian parliamentary-election rules let candidates run for two seats at once. So Narendra Modi of the BJP sought not only his home seat, Vadodara in Gujarat, but also contested in Varanasi, the holy city, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Now: What happens if Mr. Modi wins both seats?

He’ll need to give one up. And there is speculation that he would actually give up Vadodara and retain Varanasi, where the BJP has campaigned aggressively. For voters in Vadodara, that means they will need to have yet another election—choosing another representative for Parliament.

But B.G. Verghese, a political analyst at New Delhi’s Center for Policy Research, says that for “a man who served Gujarat for so long,” the decision to contest another seat was a wise one and meant “spreading his net wider by gaining inroads through the Gangetic heartland into the northern belt.”

Google used an ad featuring Mr. Negi to encourage Indians to take part in the ballot. This election saw the biggest turnout ever in a general election in India with 66.4 % of the 814 million-strong electorate casting a vote.

Ajit Singh, the federal civil aviation minister, lost his parliamentary seat in Uttar Pradesh to Satyapal Singh, a former Mumbai police commissioner of the BJP, who running in his first parliamentary election.

Mr. Singh leads the Rashtriya Lok Dal, a regional party in Uttar Pradesh. He is an ally of the Congress party.

So far, the BJP is leading in 199 seats, Congress in 40. The regional party in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress, has 16 seats. Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK in Tamil Nadu has 15 seats, according to a tweet by the Press and Information Bureau.

The results of the recent general elections suggest that even though the BJP has consistently held a stronghold in the state, it hasn’t been by huge margins. In 2009, for instance, BJP won roughly 46% of the total votes in the state, barely six percentage points more than the rival Congress party. In 2004, the gap was narrower: The difference was hardly 4 percentage points.

This time however, early forecasts by the election commission show the BJP leading in all of the state’s 26 constituencies.

If this translates into a big margin, it will be a clear sign of a reinvigorated home-field advantage and would establish Mr. Modi’s nationwide popularity.

The Congress Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah is concerned about the early results as votes are counted. “I imagined a worst case scenario but early trends are worse than that,” he tweeted from his verified account on the social media site Twitter.

In his home constituency of Vadodara in Gujarat, Narendra Modi is ahead of the nearest competitor by more than 200,000 votes. It looks like Gujarat’s voters weren’t miffed he decided to also run for Parliament from the city of Varanasi in a different state. If this margin continues to grow, it would be a clear sign that the people of Gujarat are keen to see their man on the throne in Delhi.

As early results trickled in Friday supporters of the Hindu nationalist-Bharatiya Janata Party lined up outside the party headquarters raising victory slogans. A few blocks away, in a leafy neighborhood of New Delhi, the headquarters of the ruling-Congress party lay abandoned.

The Shiromani Akali Dal and its ally the BJP is expected to win a majority in the state known for its manufacturing and wheat production. Early election trends suggest that Arun Jaitley, the presumed finance minister in a BJP government, will win the first seat for which he has had to campaign. Mr. Jaitley has been the leader of the opposition in the upper house of Parliament, who are appointed by their respective parties.

It was a battle between Bollywood celebrities in Chandigarh. Kirron Kher contested for the BJP while model-turned-actress Gulkirat Kaur Panag was the AAP’s candidate.

The Congress fielded a more sedate candidate, former railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal.

Ms. Kher is expected to ride a strong wave of BJP support to win the contest in the union territory that serves as the state capital of both Punjab and Haryana. The veteran Mr. Bansal’s defeat would mark a huge loss in what has traditionally been a bastion of Congress support.

The mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh is expected to hand out a verdict in favor of the Bharatiya Janata Party with the saffron party winning two out of four parliamentary seats. Key candidates include Pratibha Singh wife of the state’s chief minister and Congress veteran Virbhadra Singh, and Kamal Kant a candidate for the upstart Aam Aadmi Party. Ms. Kant is the mother of the celebrated soldier Vikram Batra who died during the Kargil war.

The Congress is expected to lose all five of the state’s parliamentary seats. Two former BJP chief ministers in the state and wife of the incumbent and son of a former congress chief minister will keenly await people’s verdict.

Hope turned to gloom in the Congress camp as early trends suggested a major BJP victory. “It’s clearly disappointing so far,” said Congress spokesman Sanjay Jha. He said Congress was hoping to do well in Punjab, Kerala and Assam. Congress spokeswoman Ami Yagnik said no individual should have to shoulder the blame for Congress’s performance. She said the campaign was a team effort.

Though political parties tend to field weaker candidates in constituencies where one party dominates, this year, the BJP has sent actress-turned-politician Smriti Irani to the ruling Congress stronghold, Amethi. Ms. Irani was leading when votes from the industrial belt of Jagdishpur were being counted.

“The mood when we were campaigning is that people want a change,” said Ms. Irani’s husband, Zubin Irani.

BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told the Wall Street Journal that election results show that there has been a tectonic shift in India’s political landscape and the world can look forward to a more business friendly India.

“Let me (reassure) the investors that India is a safe investment destination. It will be a stable and decisive government,” he said. ‎”We will provide enabling atmosphere, quick decisions, stable fiscal policy and tax regime…This won’t be the government only for the Sensex, but whole of India. “

The often fractious state of Jammu and Kashmir witnessed the highest-ever voter turnout (50.1%) this election. That’s below the national average of 66.4%, but a significant jump from the election in 2009, where only 39.7% of the state’s estimated 7 million voters showed up to cast their ballot. The state sends six people to India’s lower house of Parliament, and has traditionally had one of the lowest voter turnout rates in India.

High-profile candidates contesting this year’s election include federal ministers Ghulam Nabi Azad and Farooq Abdullah, as well as Mehbooba Mufti, the fiery leader of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.

If the BJP increases its number of seats in the north-eastern state, it will be a sign of its transformation into a truly national party.

The BJP won four seats in Assam in 2009, and the party faces an uphill battle to increase that figure. The Congress won half of the 14 parliamentary seats in the state five years ago, and has ruled the state since 2001. The other key parties to follow are the Asom Gana Parishad, the Assam United Democractic Front and the Bodoland Peoples Front which won one seat each in the last election.

Outside a largely deserted Congress party headquarters in Delhi Friday morning, a handful of supporters chanted “It’s time for Priyanka Gandhi to lead the party.” Ms. Gandhi is the younger sister of Rahul Gandhi, who led the party’s campaign in the national elections this year. Said Jagdish Sharma, a Congress worker: “We need Priyanka Gandhi to revive the party.”

The new government needs to follow through on plans to implement a nation-wide, uniform tax structure on goods and services in place of the current, confusing state-by-state system, which increases the cost of manufactured goods like cars, said P. Balendran, vice president of the local unit of General Motors Co.

He said tax rates on automobiles in India are among the highest in the world. Lower tax rates would help to create demand and boost automobile manufacturing jobs.

India’s new government needs to maintain the low tax rates on automobiles that were implemented in February, said Pawan Goenka, head of the automotive, tractor and two-wheeler business at Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.

“The auto industry is passing through its worst-ever phase,” said Mr. Goenka. “All segments except two-wheelers are in trouble.”

He said a big boost for growth in the Indian industry could also come from the start of new infrastructure projects, which create demand for commercial vehicles.

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1:05 am

Power Outages, Potholes and Water Shortages Dim Gandhi Legacy in Amethi

Chandra Shekhar Singh, 48, is a teacher at the Ucch Prathmik School in Amethi.

Jagdishpur, Amethi — At a public school in the constituency where prospects for Rahul Gandhi, vice president of the ruling Congress party, are looking bleaker, there are eight classrooms filled with eager students–but only three teachers.

The school has only one tap, but its water isn’t potable. Still, many of the students pump and drink water from it anyway.

The road to the school is narrow and pot-holed, a sharp contrast to the well-paved main highway running through Amethi.

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Chandra Shekhar Singh, 48, a teacher at the Ucch Prathmik School says, “Rahul Gandhi will win the election here because his father and uncle have started many factories here. He is benefitting from their work.”

But after the rule of his father, Rajiv Gandhi– assassinated in 1991– expenses and corruption have risen, says Mr. Singh. “We feel [Rahul] will wake up because this time good people have stood against him. He’s the PM hopeful for Congress, that’s why people voted for him.”

“We need a change this time. Congress thinks they will keep winning no matter what they do,” he says, sitting on a plastic chair on the school’s dusty grounds.

Mr. Singh did not vote because the state government assigned him to help count votes in a district far from Jagdishpur, where he is a registered voter.

But he has closely observed the Gandhi family scion in his constituency. “Rahul Gandhi has done many road shows on the main highway [during the campaign]. But he hasn’t done anything. He needs to listen to the troubles of people in the villages.”

Sushma Srivastava, 38, who also teaches at the school, says she is very disappointed with Mr. Gandhi. “You are asking what Rahul Gandhi has done? There are no jobs here. We get electricity for 8 to 10 hours a day, and that too intermittently,” she said. “The rich get everything they need, but none of these benefits reach the poor.”

On the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate she says, “Our hope is that if Modi becomes PM, he will do something. He came here and promised he would do something for Amethi.”

The BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi, famous for being the party’s outspoken spokeswoman, is leading the race for the prestigious New Delhi constituency. While it had been a Congress stronghold in the national elections in 2004 and 2009, this round the Congress candidate –Ajay Maken–is hardly in the race. The main battle seems to be between Ms. Lekhi and the Aam Aadmi Party’s Ashish Khetan, a journalist-turned politician.

Khushboo Shah–a 22-year-old, Mumbai-based stock dealer who just started working a month ago–is getting an extra bonus from the election rally. It is generating trades for her company and pride for her family which is from Gujarat.

“I can’t hold back my excitement,” she said. “Most of our clients are bullish on bank stocks as these stocks will benefit when the economy revives. My father has asked me to bring sweets for him while going back home in the evening as Narendra Modi is becoming the next Prime Minister. We are proud that a Gujarati will now lead the country.”

Telangana Rashtra Samithi, a regional party led by K. Chandrasekhar Rao (who spearheaded the statehood campaign) is expected to be the winner in the northern part of Andhra Pradesh–which is breaking off in a few weeks to become the new state of Telangana. Mr. Rao is expected to be the chief minister of the new state of Telangana.

In the remaining region, likely to be called Seemandhra when the split happens in June, there’s a neck-and-neck fight between two regional parties — the YSR Congress Party, a group that broke away from Congress in 2009, and Telugu Desam Party.

The Congress party, a powerhouse in the state for decades, is likely to be the biggest loser in the state. Analysts say the party’s decision to split the state of Andhra Pradesh in two has backfired.

Early voting tallies show that the Bharatiya Janata Party is leading in eight seats in Assam. If the party wins all the eight seats, that would be double its 2009 tally when it won only four out of the 21 seats in the key northeast Indian state. Of the trends for 13 seats declared so far, the Congress party is leading in two seats while the All India United Democratic Front is leading in two seats, and one seat is going to an Independent candidate.

The Indian economy needs to grow at 7% to 8% to generate jobs, said S. Gopalkrishnan, vice chairman of Infosys Ltd.

India’s gross domestic product has been expanding at less than 5% in recent quarter. Passing the long-stalled uniform goods and sales tax could boost economic growth by up to two percentage points, getting the country closer to the growth rate it needs, he said. Currently, Indian companies pay a host of different taxes to the central and state government—GST would replace this with a single tax.

“Another area of focus should be removing bottlenecks that have put infrastructure projects on hold for a while now, especially in critical areas such as utilities, power and water. This is important to provide a strong backbone that is needed to facilitate economic activity and growth,” Mr. Gopalkrishnan said.

The latest vote count suggest that the Congress party—which had held all seven lower house of Parliament seats from the capital—is no longer in the picture in Delhi. All its candidates are trailing their Bharatiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party rivals. The BJP is leading on all seven parliamentary seats while Aam Aadmi Party is in second.

With early results showing a commanding lead for Narendra Modi’s BJP, Indian executives expect him to take the strong leadership he showed in Gujarat to New Delhi.

“Our impression based on his track record is that we look forward to leadership from him. We expect him to move things in a positive direction,” said Satish Reddy, chairman of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., India’s second-largest drug company by sales. “Decision making in the government had ground to a halt.”

India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party looks set to win 272 seats, making this the first time since 1984 that a single political party has won a majority of the seats in the country’s lower house of Parliament. While this suggests the new government will be stable, analysts say the BJP will still need to tie up with the regional parties which form the National Democratic Alliance–such as Punjab state’s Akali Dal and Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena. The BJP is outgunned in the upper house of Parliament and these allies can help it get the numbers when it needs to get a bill approved.

Narendra Modi has won the parliamentary seat for Vadodara in his native state of Gujarat, according to NDTV . He beat his Congress rival Madhusudan Mistri. Mr. Modi is also contesting from Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh where he is ahead of his closest rival Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Admi Party.

Pundits chattering away in television studios as the official results are tabulated, are coming up with colorful descriptions of the BJP’s surge. For some, it is a saffron sweep, referring to the party’s trademark color. Another TV panelist dubbed the Modi wave a TsuNaMo, using Mr. Modi’s nickname, NaMo, to modify the word tsunami.

Early tallies from Amethi show that Rahul Gandhi is back in the lead, with 7,135 votes. That is about 2,000 votes ahead of his BJP challenger, Smriti Irani. Ms. Irani took an early lead in counting from the constituency, which has elected members of the Gandhi clan for decades. But as the vote tally continued, Mr. Gandhi regained lost ground. Counting is likely to continue until 2 pm in this 1.4 million-strong constituency.

In 2004, the Congress won only four of the 25 seats in the western state and the BJP took 21. Then in 2009, the voting reversed. The BJP won four seats and the Congress won 20. The results of the state’s elections have followed a similar pattern for more than two decades as no political party able to hold office for more than one term.

In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, or AIADMK, is leading in 30 out of 39 seats that the state sends to Parliament, according to election trends released by NDTV news channel at 11:20 p.m. The AIADMK, led by Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa, is credited for having initiated a number of reforms in Tamil Nadu, launching nutritious noon-lunch programs, new health facilities targeting adolescent girls; and the centralized distribution of drugs and medical supplies. It won nine seats during previous elections, in 2009.

Its arch-rival, Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam, seems to be headed for a big electoral loss after being discredited in the eyes of Tamil voters over concerns about corruption controversies. The DMK got 18 seats in 2009 national elections.

Abhijit Mukerjee–the son of the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, and a Congress party candidate–is in a close race with his rival from the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Mr. Mukherjee is trailing CPI (M)’s Muzaffar Hossain by a small number of votes in the Jangipur constituency in West Bengal. Mr. Mukherjee faced anger and criticism from across India when he called women participating in protests after the gang rape of a woman in New Delhi in 2012 “highly dented and painted” and disconnected from ground realities. Mr. Mukherjee later apologized for his remarks.

Bappi Lahiri, commonly referred to as India’s Disco King for bringing disco music to Bollywood movies, may lose his first election. Mr. Lahiri –who is representing the Bharatiya Janata Party– is in third place so far, behind Kalyan Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress and Tirthankar Ray of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Mr. Lahiri – also known for wearing flashy gold chains and bracelets—joined the BJP earlier this year and made his electoral debut from the Srerampur constituency in West Bengal.

Madhya Pradesh’s Guna is one of the few constituencies in the central state where the Congress party is in the lead. The man contesting the seat for Congress is Jyotiraditya Madhavrao Scindia, the scion of a former royal family of Gwalior.

One of the richest legislators in India, Mr. Scindia, led the Congress’s campaign during Madhya Pradesh’s state elections last year. While the Congress party lost terribly in those local elections, Mr. Scindia retained his seat.

Tax-law changes and feuds with foreign companies have left the impression investors from abroad were being hounded. Companies like Vodafone and Nokia are fighting tax demands in India due to lack of clarity on taxation of cross-border deals and transactions. Broader deterioration in the economy also hurt investor confidence. In the first five years of the Congress-led government, between 2004 and 2009, foreign direct investment grew each year. But during the second term, FDI fell in at least three of the five years. Economists say the next government needs to foster a more business-friendly environment by simplifying tax rules on international transactions. Stimulating domestic demand by providing fast-track clearances to industrial projects might also boost growth and attract more foreign investors. The changes in tax provisions would require the sanction of Parliament, which would depend on the strength of the next government. Lacking a clear majority in Parliament would make it difficult for any government, whether led by Mr. Modi, or someone else, to carry out changes like these.

NDTV projected that Varun Gandhi, a scion of India’s storied Nehru-Gandhi clan and a candidate for the BJP, would win a seat in Parliament from Sultanpur, a constituency near the one where his cousin, Rahul Gandhi, Congress’s standard bearer is running. Votes in the districts were still being counted at midday Friday.

Varun Gandhi has turned his back on Congress, the party of his great-grandfather, grandmother and father. He is the son of Sanjay Gandhi, who died in a plane crash in 1980. Before his death, Sanjay Gandhi was being groomed to succeed his mother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, as leader of the Congress party. After he died, the party mantle shifted to his brother, Rajiv Gandhi, who later became prime minister and was assassinated in 1991. Rahul Gandhi is Rajiv Gandhi’s son.

Varun Gandhi was elected to Parliament in 2009 with the BJP. He has been active in politics since he was 19, working with his mother in India’s Hindu heartland state of Uttar Pradesh.

As the numbers begin to clearly indicate a big win for the Bharatiya Janata Party with it leading in 275 of India’s 543 constituencies, Narendra Modi, the man set to be the next prime minister of India, has tweeted saying : “India has won!”

Industrialist, Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel & Power Ltd., is facing an embarrassing defeat in the race for the Parliamentary seat of Kurukshetra, where he had won twice. His father, the late O.P. Jindal, who started the multi-billion dollar steel empire, also represented the same constituency in the 1990s.

The trading floor at a Mumbai-based broker is buzzing. Dealers are flooded with calls from the clients after the market jumped during early trade. Nashim Khan, with seven years of stock-trading under his belt, said he came to office half an hour early, around 8 a.m., as he couldn’t contain his excitement. “We will not even get time to have our lunch today,” he said. “Normally, we get a call in every 40 to 60 seconds, but today we are getting a call in every 15 to 20 seconds.”

Ritesh Ashar, regional head of Nirmal Bang Securities, said the market will remain choppy during early trade, but predicts it will jump after 11:30 a.m. or noon once the results clarify. He said solar energy and power sectors are likely to see the biggest bump as BJP’s Mr. Modi has a track record of development in these sectors in his home state Gujarat. Suzlon, Moser Baer Solar Limited and Reliance Energy are likely to benefit most, he says.

In this photograph taken on May 8, 2014, Indian Congress Party Vice President Rahul Gandhi pauses as he addresses an election rally in Kolkata.

Congress party leaders are admitting defeat and already shifting to opposition tactics of taking pot shots at the likely, soon-to-be-ruling party the BJP.

“Time will tell whether focus on only one individual (like Narendra Modi) is good for the country or not,” said a Congress spokesman, Randeep Singh Surjewala. “We will play a responsible opposition.”

“We are concerned about colors shown by BJP during the election,” said Congress spokesman Sanjay Jha. “BJP is not going to compromise on its (Hindu nationalist) agenda. That’s what we are concerned about … We have to regroup and re-energize ourselves.”

India’s coal minister, Sriprakash Jaiswal, is facing defeat in the race for the parliamentary seat of Kanpur in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Though he has been elected to the seat three times in a row, his reputation has been hurt by allegations of irregularities in the allocation of coal blocks, which according to federal auditor has cost the country more than $30 billion in potential revenue. Constant charges of corruption against the Congress party-led government have apparently hurt Mr. Jaiswal’s efforts to win over the local voters again. He trails Bharatiya Janata Party’s veteran Murli Manohar Joshi.

Indian sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik puts the finishing touches to his sand sculpture of a rupee coin at a beach in Orissa.

Even as higher imports threaten to widen the current account deficit, India’s exports growth still is unsteady. This could put pressure on the rupee, as the country makes more dollar purchases to pay for imports than dollar sales to bring in revenue. A gradual tapering of the easy-money policies by the U.S. Federal Reserve would also lead to capital outflows and pressure the rupee.

India plans to spend $1 trillion by 2017 to overhaul its crumbling infrastructure. Some of the money will come from the government and the other half from the private sector. But arranging such huge funds won’t be easy. Economists say the government’s financial position is extremely tight, sparing it little room to increase spending. Even private sector funding, such as from banks, is hard to come because the tenure of these projects usually outlasts the duration for which banks are willing to lend. Infrastructure projects sometimes can take as many as 15-20 years to complete.

A Bharatiya Janata Party mandate would “help the leadership restore much-needed investor confidence, attract higher investments and generate employment, especially in the manufacturing sector,” said Sidharth Birla, president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Narendra Modi, BJP’s candidate likely to become the country’s new prime minister, has pledged to boost ‎to manufacturing and create more jobs.

Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders of Infosys, who fought on a Congress ticket is trailing his BJP rival.

They were known for their management prowess, but that is apparently not enough in world of politics. Both of the two former executives of Infosys Ltd.–India’s second-largest software exporter by revenue–who ran in the elections are way behind in their races with BJP candidates. Nandan Nilekani, one of the co-founders of Infosys, fought on a Congress ticket for the Bangalore South seat and is trailing the BJP’s strongman Ananth Kumar. The other executive, V. Balakrishnan, who is representing the Aam Aadmi Party in Bangalore central, is trailing the BJP’s P.C. Mohan.

The Aam Aadmi Party, which stormed the capital’s political scene last year, winning 28 of 70 seats in the state assembly, is struggling in this year’s parliamentary elections. At midday Friday, the party was trailing in all seven Delhi constituencies. In three, the BJP was beating AAP by more than 100,000 votes.

The party has shaken up the capital’s politics with its focus on graft busting. But that hasn’t translated into the support it had hoped for. “We have not done as well as we expected in Delhi,” Prashant Bhushan, a senior AAP leader, told India’s NDTV.

The southern state of Kerala–traditionally a stronghold for Communist parties, followed by Congress–has 20 parliamentary seats. The Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to make gains because of anti-incumbent fervor, and the Left’s internal fissures.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son, Karti P. Chidambaram, who ran for office for the first time is losing to the candidates from three other parties in his home constituency of Sivaganga in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. In the latest vote tally, the younger Chidambaram only had about a fourth of the votes of the leading candidate, N.R. Senthilnathan of the AIADMK.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, led by Kumari Mayawati, seems headed for its worst performance since the party came into existence in 1984. CNN-IBN news channel predicted that the BSP might not win even a single seat out of the 80 parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state. The BSP won 21 seats during last general election in 2009. Ms. Mayawati, an icon for millions of Dalits, a group that is traditionally at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, has built a power base in Uttar Pradesh and has hoped to replicate her regional popularity on the national level.

The Special Protection Group, an elite force that protects the Gandhis, use dogs to inspect media equipment at Congress headquarters in New Delhi, India. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are expected to make an appearance later today.

The Bharatiya Janata Party may win one of two seats in Arunachal Pradesh — a remote state also claimed by China. A win for the BJP there would give a significant symbolic boost in its effort to broaden its voter appeal as a national party. BJP candidate Kiren Rijiju is leading by about 1,700 votes over his rival, Takam Sanjoy of the Congress party, in the Arunachal West constituency. In the Arunachal East constituency, Congress party’s Ninong Ering is leading his rival from the BJP, Tapir Gao. Arunachal Pradesh has only 735,196 eligible voters out of than 814 million voters nationwide.

The Congress party’s poor showing in Assam led the state’s chief minister, Tarun Gogoi, to offer his resignation. The Times Now television channel said Mr. Gogoi’s move was to accept responsibility for the party’s electoral performance. The Bharatiya Janata Party is leading in nine of 14 seats in the key northeastern state–more than double the four it won in the 2009 elections. The Congress, party, which has ruled the state since 2001, is leading in just one seat, down from the seven it won in 2009. The All India United Democratic Front party is leading in three seats, with one going to an independent candidate. Among the candidates, Mr. Gogoi’s son, Gourav Gogoi, was trailing his rival candidate from the BJP, Mrinal Kumar Saikia, in the Kaliabor constituency.

The government’s financial position is in a precarious state with the fiscal deficit, or the shortfall of revenue over spending, standing at 4.6% of gross domestic product in the last fiscal year, much higher than the 3% level that is widely believed to be tolerable. Given the weak state of the economy, revenue isn’t going to increase sharply while spending may have to be lifted to support the economy. That could strain the government’s financial position further, keeping alive the threat of a sovereign rating downgrade.

Indian stocks gave up some of their gains by Friday afternoon, as investors booked profits. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex, which had jumped by 6% earlier in the day, was up just 2% by early afternoon at 24391.53. But analysts are unfazed, and say Friday’s run is a precursor to further gains in coming months. Dilip Bhat, managing director of Mumbai brokerage Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt., says he expects a government run by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Narenda Modi to help the investment cycle, create new jobs and boost growth. He expects Sensex to touch 30000 by the end of the year.

Initial vote tallies show the Telugu Desam Party is leading in the races for 13 of Andhra Pradesh’s 42 parliamentary seats. The YSR Congress Party, a group that broke away from Congress in 2009, is leading in 10 seats.

The TDP, which has been around for decades, has allied with the BJP this election. The two parties had previously joined forces in 1998 when the TDP provided outside support for a BJP-led coalition government. But the TDP pulled out of the alliance after the BJP lost national election in 2004.

India’s former soccer captain, Bhaichung Bhutia, who has led the country and various clubs to tournament wins for about two decades, is trailing in his electoral debut. Mr. Bhutia, representing the Trinamool Congress party in elections in the hilly constituency of Darjeeling in West Bengal state, was trailing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s S. S. Ahluwalia by more than 127,000 votes by early afternoon. If he does lose, Mr. Bhutia– nicknamed the Sikkimese Sniper for his skills as a striker belonging to the state of Sikkim–would be an exception in an otherwise strong performance by the Trinamool Congress in the eastern Indian state. The party is leading in 34 of 42 seats there.

The Congress-led UPA government’s decision to split the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh into two states despite stiff opposition has proven costly. Congress is leading in just one seat in Andhra Pradesh compared to the 33 it won in the 2009 federal polls. Regional party Telugu Desam was leading in the races for 13 seats, followed by another regional party, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, which is leading in races for 11 seats. The BJP is ahead in three of the seats while YSR-Congress is leading in 10 of the total 39 parliamentary seats the state has

“One of the primary concerns of the industry for the past few years has been the slowdown in growth on account of policy inaction and various scams and allegations of corruption leading,” said Rohit Mahajan, head for forensic services at Deloitte in India.

Mr. Mahajan expects the new government to fast-track pending anticorruption bills.

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This “ will go a long way in restoring confidence and supporting India’s ongoing efforts at creating a zero-tolerance culture for bribery and corruption, and help it emerge as a leading investment destination,” Mr. Mahajan said.

Moving away from their reputation of being notoriously bad, exit polls are shaping up to be close to the mark in Madhya Pradesh. Most exit-poll predictions suggested a clean sweep for BJP, retaining its power in the state. The exit poll by the Hindi television news channel ABP News and AC Nielsen, for instance, predicted the 26 of the states 29 going to the BJP and the other three going to the Congress.

By Friday afternoon, the party was leading in 26 of the state’s 29 constituencies, according to India’s Election Commission.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s so-called Modi wave has reached the hills of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand as the party is on track to win all the parliamentary seats in both the states. A complete rout of Congress in Uttarkhand has long been expected but the BJP’s clean sweep in Himachal has surprised political commentators who had thought Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party would at least win a seat each.

Indian pedestrians react as they watch as a digital broadcast presents the rolling share price information and national election results news coverage on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange building in Mumbai on May 16, 2014.

Indian stock traders say a clear victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party could be the start of a bull run in the equities market.

Shiv Prakash Yadav, 29, is one such trader. He has been struggling to summon the funds to renovate his house in his native village in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh for the past three years. He hopes that a spike in retail participants in the market will plump his commissions.

Ansari Nurulhuda, 33, who manages more than 10 stock dealers, said the wide victory will restore faith in the market and raise awareness of investment opportunities.

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Indian stocks remained almost stagnant through the end of 2013, but started to climb once surveys over the past few months indicated BJP’s stronger election-victory prospects. The benchmark Sensex index gained nearly 15% so far this year, making it one of the best-performing benchmark indexes in Asia.

CLSA said in a note earlier this week that retail exposure to stocks in India is close to an all-time low, but the newly elected government may turn the tide. Equities account for just 2% of total household assets in India, with $8 billion of stocks sold in the past five years.

Shankar Sharma, a well-known bear on Indian stocks and founder of Mumbai-based stock broker First Global Stockbroking Pvt. Ltd., expects the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex to rise 20% by the end of the year. However, Mr. Sharma doesn’t give credit to BJP’s Narendra Modi.

“Expectations are so high from him that we need to see if they can be met,” Mr. Sharma says. Instead, he says Indian stocks will continue to rise because India’s economy is in better shape than other major emerging markets. This includes China, which faces a real-estate bubble, and Brazil, which is grappling with a high current-account deficit.

The Bharatiya Janata Party is expected to make a remarkable comeback in Uttar Pradesh–considered to be the country’s Hindi heartland–as it surged ahead by midafternoon Friday in 69 of the 80 parliamentary seats, according to early vote tallies. The party’s prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi, is leading by more than a quarter-million votes in the race for the parliamentary seat in Varanasi. Mr. Modi is pitted there against the Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal and Congress party’s Ajay Rai.

Among other prominent BJP leaders ahead in their constituencies by midafternoon: Rajnath Singh, the party’s president in Lucknow, the state’s capital; Murli Manohar Joshi in Kanpur; Uma Bharti in Jhansi; and former army chief V.K. Singh in Ghaziabad. During previous parliamentary elections in 2009, the BJP won just 10 seats in the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s office in Ahmedabad has been decorated with marigolds and orange balloons. Many have gathered outside the office to watch supporters dance as they celebrate BJP’s pending victory.

Taxi driver Mohan Pathani Padajiya once voted for the Congress party but now regrets his choice.

Congress politicians “just tried to get rich. They didn’t work for Gujarat and its people,” when they were in power said Mr. Padajiya, who has been driving in Ahmedabad for 21 years.

Under Congress rule, Gujarat didn’t have proper roads, electricity or water supply, he said. That changed when Mr. Modi was voted to power. Now Mr. Padajiya is an ardent Modi supporter.

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“He brought so many industries to Gujarat. Now we all have jobs. We are very happy here,” he said. “We feel proud that Gujarat’s chief minister is now on his way to becoming the prime minister of the country.”

As counting continues in Amethi, Congress workers celebrated Rahul Gandhi’s lead of 40,000 votes over Bharatiya Janata Party candidate Smriti Irani. Sullen BJP workers said they were waiting for the final tally, and even if Mr. Gandhi wins, it will no longer be by a staggering margin of 370,000 votes as it was in the 2009 federal polls.

“This is the first time someone has challenged him this way,” said farmer Prabhu Shankar Tiwari.

“The election results reflect a historic mandate for stability, development and good governance,” said Kumar Mangalam Birla, the billionaire chairman of the Aditya Birla Group, a conglomerate that makes staples from textiles to cement. The expected victory for Narendra Modi’s BJP bodes well for economic reforms, he said. “A stable government enables faster speed of decision making. It is more likely to take bold steps for economy reform. Importantly, it is not distracted by pressures of ‘managing’ an unstable coalition.”

Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi and party vice president Rahul Gandhi after addressing a press conference at Congress Party headquarters in New Delhi on May 16,2014.

“I hold myself responsible,” Rahul Gandhi, the vice-president of the Congress party said, about the outcome at the party’s headquarters in New Delhi.

The Congress took a drubbing in the polls. It has so far managed to win only 6 seats and lead in 40 more compared to their main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has won 59 seats and is leading in 220 constituencies, according to the Election Commission of India.

Speaking in Hindi, his mother, Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party, said: “The mandate was clearly against us…we accept the people’s verdict with humility.”

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Mrs. Gandhi congratulated the BJP and said she hoped “the new government will not compromise the country’s national unity.”

The stage is being set for Narendra Modi, India’s next likely prime minister to speak at a gathering in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat where Mr. Modi has been been chief minsiter since 2001.

The stage is set to welcome BJP’s Narendra Modi for his anticipated victory speech. Workers are busily setting up barricades and applying finishing touches to the stage.

About 100 police officers are guarding the area.

Spectators have started to arrive, greeted by a voice recording of Mr. Modi saying, “I won’t let my country die” overlaid with music.

The Bharatiya Janata Party may be poised for victory, but little known is the role its sister group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, played in mobilizing tens of thousands of Indians to support the Hindu nationalist party.

In a press release as results trickled in Friday, the right-wing Hindu group sought to establish its close ties to Narendra Modi – India’s next likely prime minister – and stress on his roots as an RSS volunteer. “Narendra Modi is all set to become the Prime Minister of India, is the second RSS Swayamsevak to reach the post after Atal Bihari Vajapayee,” the outfit said, referring to former Prime Minister Mr. Vajapayee.

Mr. Modi was inducted as youth volunteer in the RSS before climbing the ranks of the BJP. The organization has been accused of inciting communal violence, particularly between Hindus and Muslims.

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In election campaigns, Mr. Modi has sought to portray himself as a reformer and played down his Hindu-nationalist roots to broaden his appeal. In the press note, the RSS, too, sought to underplay its religious affiliations. “By setting aside the ideological, religious and social differences, we expect the new government to create an environment where nation stays united, there is total social inclusiveness and no one ever feels exploited,” it said.

A host of Bollywood stars who embraced election mandates and traveled the dusty roads of India to win people’s hearts fared rather poorly in India’s federal election.

In the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, any chance of Bhojpuri movie star Ravi Kishan, fighting on behalf of the Congress party winning the election looked bleak as he trailed five candidates. The Bigg Boss contender had promised to build film studios to attract Bollywood business – that’s unlikely to happen now.

South Indian actress Nagma was in fourth place as counting continued into Friday evening from the constituency of Meerut in UP, according to the Election Commission of India.

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So far in the western state of Maharashtra, actress Rakhi Sawant who launched her own party ahead of this election with an party symbol of the fiery green chili had received only 1,930 votes by Friday evening.

They put up a colorful campaign but one had to lose to the other in Chandigarh where not one but two actresses were pitted against each other. Kirron Kher, a popular film and television actress, won with 191,362 votes on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and her much younger peer and former Miss India, Gul Panag who was representing the upstart Aam Aadmi Party came in a sorry third to tainted Congress minister Pawan Bansal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s decision to part ways with Janata Dal (United) seems to have worked in its favor in Bihar, one of the country’s poorest states. The BJP is leading in 19 out of the state’s 40 parliamentary seats; the JD(U) is leading in just one seat, according to the Election Commission of India..

The BJP and the JD (U) severed their alliance last year, after 17 years of working together. The two parties are contesting the election without each other’s support for the first time since 1996. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the JD(U) won 20 seats while the BJP got 12.

The BJP’s recent allies – the Lok Janshakti Party and Rashtriya Lok Samata Party – are leading in five and three seats respectively.

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The Rashtriya Janata Dal party, whose leader Lalu Prasad Yadav enjoys traditional support among Muslims and Yadavs, a backward-caste community, is leading in two seats.

A major setback for the Congress party, which is leading in one seat. Meira Kumar, Congress party’s leader and Speaker of the lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha, is trailing BJP’s Chhedi Paswan in Sasaram parliamentary seat.

Popular film actors are excelling in elections in the state of West Bengal.

Film actress and current member of parliament, Satabdi Roy, has been reelected from the Birbhum constituency, according to the Election Commission of India website.

Ms. Roy, a Trinamool Congress party candidate, defeated Elahi Kamre Mahammad of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) by more than 67,000 votes.

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Actor Tapas Paul also has been reelected as a Trinamool Congress candidate. He defeated Shantanu Jha of the CPI (M) by more than 71,000 votes in the Krishnanagar constituency.

Separately, film actress Moon Moon Sen is leading by a wide in her electoral debut as a candidate of the Trinamool Congress party in the Bankura constituency. Daughter of Bengali film legend Suchitra Sen and the mother of movie actresses, Riya Sen and Raima Sen, Moon Moon Sen has amassed more than 98,000 votes over her closest rival, Acharia Basudeb, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

In the Ghatal constituency, film actor and Trinamool Congress candidate Deepak Adhikary is leading by close to 148,000 votes over Santosh Rana of the CPI (M).

Also, Sandhya Roy of the Trinamool Congress—who has acted in more than 100 movies—is leading in Medinipur. He leads his closest rival, Prabodh Panda of the CPI, by about 184,500 votes.

Amit Shah, a leader of Bharatiya Janata Party, throws garlands towards BJP supporters during celebrations after learning of poll results outside the party headquarters in New Delhi May 16, 2014. Opposition candidate Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India, with early election results on Friday showing the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party headed for the biggest victory the country has seen in 30 years.

Narendra Modi-led BJP government in India could face policy stalemate despite getting a majority of seats on its own in the just concluded federal polls to India’s parliament.

This is because political parties opposed to the BJP still control the Upper House, and might restrict the passage of key bills and reforms, according to Switzerland-based consulting firm Marwas, which helps U.S. and European companies to do business in India.

“To ensure stability, security and (investor’s) confidence, the BJP needs to ensure it does not push an extreme right-wing, nationalist or anti-secular agenda,” Marwas said in a note late Friday as the votes were being counted. “However, there will be more stable governance for the coming 5 years than was the case under the outgoing government.”

Indian supporters of Bharatiya Janata Party leader and prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi dance in front of the party headquarters in New Delhi on May 16, 2014. India’s triumphant Hindu nationalists declared “the start of a new era” in the world’s biggest democracy after hardline BJP leader Narendra Modi propelled them to a stunning win on a platform of revitalizing the sickly economy.

A supporter of Bharatiya Janata Party waves the party flag during celebrations after learning of initial poll results outside the party headquarters in New Delhi May 16, 2014. Opposition candidate Narendra Modi will be the next prime minister of India, with early election results on Friday showing the pro-business Hindu nationalist and his party headed for the biggest victory the country has seen in 30 years.

“I hope that after assuming power the party takes steps to bring down inflation, address the problem of corruption and does something for the poor. I also hope they regularize unauthorized colonies in Delhi so that facilities improve too.”

“Lot of scams happened during Congress rule and inflation was also a problem. Time will tell what BJP will do to address these issues. They have a reputation for inciting riots. If that happens after they come to power, it will worsen the current situation.”

Profession: Works for a telecom company in their customer service department.

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“This was expected. Change is good. If Congress would have come nothing would have changed. The best part is that the incoming government has a majority so it will be in a position to take tough decisions. But the incoming government should stay away from its Hinduvata agenda otherwise country could face a lot of problems and focus will shift away from development and economic growth.”

“It is good that the BJP is coming to power with a comfortable majority. It will give them the comfort to take decisions faster. Now people and companies will be able to take decisions on investments and consumption that have been postponed till now.”

Indian Railways on Friday evening announced it will raise passenger fares and freight rates from Tuesday. It was not immediately clear by what margin the rates are expected to rise although some local Indian media reports suggested it could rise as much as 10%.

This move is widely seen as a step toward improving the financial health of India’s ailing railways whose infrastructure – from carriages to railways tracks – have slowly deteriorated over the years as political pressure from the allies of the Congress-led government prevented any price rise in tickets and freight charges.

A Sadhu or Hindu holy man holds a placard that reads “Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the government of India” as he stands in front of a giant banner showing the image of Modi at the Bharatiya Janata Party headquarters in New Delhi on May 16, 2014.

Tata Steel said Friday it is hopeful the new government in India will provide clear policies that will give a boost to the ailing local metal, mining and infrastructure sectors. “We must work closely together to realize the potential to rally business confidence along the vast opportunities that India has to offer and are confident that the new government will provide a strong and stable new direction for growth in the country,” its managing director of India and South East Asia operations said in a statement. Koushik Chatterjee, its executive director for finance, said the new government will likely fast-track infrastructure projects in the country that would help generate demand boost economic growth.

The majority of India’s 800 million voters handed the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party electoral victory in national polls. The WSJ’s Ramy Inocencio speaks with Niharika Mandhana in New Delhi on how the country may change.

The clear majority gained by the Bharatiya Janata Party in India’s national elections Friday will likely improve investor sentiment for the country, say analysts, sweetening a mood that had soured for the incumbent government and its sometimes baffling tax moves and complex processes.

“I think having a single party with a simple majority will speed up economic reforms and accelerate investments leading to broader reform programs in the government and the administration,” said Dhanpal Jhaveri, chief executive of Everstone Capital, an India- and South East Asia-focused private-equity and real estate funds operator.

Given the BJP’s economic agenda—one based on simplifying procedures and tax reform that are both chief concerns of the private equity industry—the party’s ability to provide a stable government for the next five years will augur well, he added.

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The new government, largely viewed as strong and decisive, will steer the country back onto investors’ radar amid macroeconomic and microeconomic improvements, said Amit Khandelwal, head of transaction advisory services at Ernst and Young.

Indian voters have sent “a signal of comfort that it is one party that is controlling the parliament and won’t have to manage the whims and fancies of partners,” said Vikram Utamsingh, the managing director of Alvarez & Marsal Holdings, LLC’s advisory business in Mumbai. Earlier governments—including the Congress and the BJP—have had to curb reform ambitions to placate coalition partners. Some Left-leaning parties even sought to bar the entry of foreign retailers, among other measures.

Mr. Utamsingh said he had just returned to India from the U.S. after speaking to some global clients who are taking a fresh look at India. Still, he cautioned that the new government has to deliver on genuine reforms in the near term, possibly within the first year.

While this is a tall order for any government that faces the labyrinth of Indian bureaucracy, Arvind Mathur, president of the Indian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, said the new government’s track record in Gujarat and the federal government gives him optimism about its ability to push through reforms quickly.

Narendra Modi, the leader of the BJP who is set to become the country’s next prime minister, was the chief minister of Gujarat for about 12 years. Gujarat is considered one of the most investor friendly states in India and is one of its most prosperous.

That such watershed political change in a country of 1.3 billion people happened peacefully also should make foreign investors sit up and take notice, Mr. Mathur added from Washington. “Tell me if this is possible somewhere else?” he asked.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s Prime Ministerial candidate and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, center, and supporters at the BJP’s state headquarter in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat, India, 16 May 2014.

India’s Hindu-nationalist, pro-business leader, Narendra Modi is set to become the country’s 18th prime minister.

He is expected to take office sometime next week after India’s President Pranab Mukherjee formally invites Mr. Modi, prime ministerial nominee of the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the next government.

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By late Friday evening, the BJP won 254 seats and led in 28 constituencies, according to the Election Commission of India.

Mr. Modi, current chief minister of Gujarat is expected to visit the Bharatiya Janata Party’s head office in New Delhi Saturday and later visit Varanasi, the temple town in Uttar Pradesh, from where he contested his first ever parliamentary election and with huge margins.

Comments (5 of 31)

India is now getting out of clouds of misconceptions formed by previous Governments. WSJ your observation is wrong, Bhartiya Janata Party is not a "Hindu" Nationalist Party, it's secular and value sentiments of all races. Their motto is country first, religion later, We are proud to be Indian first instead of calling us Hindu, Muslims, Sikh and so on. It's feeling of India first given them full majority, people of every religion voted for them.

3:43 am May 31, 2014

Anonymous wrote:

The god damn American media will never see light! They interview 4 'random' people, 2 of them Hindu & 2 Muslim?! How the hell does a 10% presence in the population lead to 50% representation in all international polls? Why does the west insist on depicting India as mainly a bipolar state on which Hindus and Muslims should have an equal claim? Why don't they try this S*@t in Pakistan, which should have had a similar composition as India, historically?

When someone is generous by nature, but that generosity is later view as a duty; that very generosity is sure to become a burden... This is exactly what has happened to the Hindus of India today - if the West would just shut up & back off [it is too much to expect them to appreciate the Indian Hindu's innate generosity in choosing secularism]; I am pretty sure things will find a peaceful steady state...

12:00 am May 19, 2014

Jayanta Debnath wrote:

Namo Namo

3:12 pm May 18, 2014

Communal wrote:

Indians are brainwashed to believe that "voting in elections = democracy".

4:46 pm May 17, 2014

Surinder Sidhu wrote:

No difference in Corruption and politics. White looters gone and saffron looters are in.

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